Infinite Regress (25 page)

“Sit,” she ordered, as she closed the door and cast a privacy ward. “Which of you put the note on Tiega’s bed?”

Julia blinked, showing the first hint of an actual reaction. Adana’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Emily stared at them both, silently channeling Lady Barb. The older woman had shown no mercy to her charges and very few students would have dared to cross her. If she’d caught Emily doing something she shouldn’t, Emily would have confessed at once. There was no point in trying to claim innocence.

“I didn’t,” Adana protested. “I don’t know what she was so upset about.”

Emily met her eyes, silently daring her to try to lie. Adana had means, motive and opportunity. She could get into the room, she disliked Tiega and she probably had been in the room—alone—between lunch and the final class of the day. The only real question was how she’d written the note, with neither fingerprints nor magical signature, but if Tiega could master spells a year or two above her grade, surely Adana could do the same.

“I didn’t write the note,” Adana insisted. “I
didn’t
!”

“Right,” Emily said. Casting a truth spell wasn’t easy, certainly not without betraying what she was doing, but she managed it on her second try. “Tell me that again, please.”

“I didn’t write the note,” Adana said.

Emily blinked in surprise. Fooling a truth spell wasn’t easy. Professor Lombardi or Lady Barb could have done it, but she doubted Adana could. Hell,
she
would have had difficulty if Void hadn’t tilted the odds in her favor. She looked at Julia, wondering if
she’d
decided to place the note instead, even though her magical training was far less advanced than Adana’s...

“I didn’t put the note on her bed,” Julia said, quietly.

Emily scowled. Were they playing games with her? Or...

“Adana,” she said, quietly. “Did you have anything to do with the note?”

“No,” Adana said. “I didn’t!”

Julia echoed her a moment later. Emily had wondered, despite herself, if Julia had written the note and Adana put it on the bed, thus evading the spell without actually
lying
, but she doubted that
anyone
could have predicted what questions she would ask. It looked as though Adana and Julia were
innocent
, which bemused her. Either someone had managed to get through the door without permission or... or Tiega had written the note herself. But unless she was a far better actress than Emily believed possible, that was unlikely...

She cursed under her breath. Using the truth spell on her charges was likely to get her into trouble, if anyone noticed... the wards would definitely notice. She looked from one to the other, then stepped backwards. Adana looked indignant; Julia merely looked resigned, from what little showed on her face. Given her background, she probably wouldn’t be surprised if she was blamed for the note anyway.

“Leave Tiega alone until dinnertime,” she ordered, curtly. “And if you happen to find out who wrote the note, let me know.”

Adana nodded, then headed for the door. Julia cast one last look at Emily, as if she wanted to say something, but followed Adana silently. Emily sat down as the door closed, suddenly feeling very tired. Casting the truth spell shouldn’t have drained her, but it had been a
very
long day. She dispelled the remainder of the spell, then forced herself to relax. There was at least an hour until dinnertime.

I could go back to Caleb
, she thought. The chair, thankfully, wasn’t comfortable. She would have fallen asleep if it had been.
We have work to do
.

She removed the note from her pocket and stared down at it, hoping to find something she’d missed the first time around. But there was nothing. The writing was blocky, the letters drawn so plainly that there was nothing distinctive about them; the paper itself was one of tens of thousands of sheets prepared for Whitehall each year. If she decided to suspect everyone who could have obtained a piece of paper, she’d have to suspect everyone in Whitehall. It wouldn’t get her anywhere.

The door opened. Aloha stepped in.

“I heard you dragged two of your charges out by their ears,” she said, as she closed the door behind her. “And then that you flogged them bloody. How much of that is actually true?”

“I
ordered
them to come with me,” Emily said. Flogging students bloody was harsh even for Mountaintop, let alone Whitehall. “Apart from that...”

She held out the note. “Tell me what you make of this?”

Aloha sighed. “We get one or two of these every year,” she said, resigned. She sat down on the chair facing Emily and crossed her legs. “Some bitch who thinks writing cowardly notes is
funny
.”

“Someone who managed to get through the bedroom door,” Emily pointed out. She ran through the details, one by one. “Is
that
normal?”

“No, but you won’t be able to convince a tutor to check the wards unless you have clear proof that it was a senior student,” Aloha said. She frowned. “Did it occur to you that Tiega might have written the note herself?”

“You didn’t see her,” Emily said, quietly. “She was very distraught.”

“It could have been a good job of acting,” Aloha said. “A person from that background would be schooled in how to conceal their true feelings almost as soon as they learned to walk and talk.”

Emily shook her head, firmly.

“But no matter,” Aloha said. “It will burn itself out, sooner or later. Leave it alone.”

“I can’t leave it alone,” Emily said. “This isn’t someone casting hexes in the corridors.”

Aloha met her eyes. “Magic requires a degree of mental toughness, a degree of adaptability, that cannot be forged if you hold their hands all the time,” she said, sternly. “You have already brushed against the limits of acceptable behavior by teaching them some basic defensive spells.”

“Which they needed to learn,” Emily snapped.

“Which they could have found in the library,” Aloha reminded her. “I believe that was what you did, when you first came to Whitehall. How many times do we have to have this discussion?”

She leaned forward. “This person—” she held out the note “—will eventually be caught by one of Tiega’s protective hexes. When she is, Tiega will no doubt mete out sufficient punishment—if the writer hasn’t already done something to earn punishment from the tutors. And they probably will, because this sort of attitude always leads to trouble.”

“Yes,” Emily said. “But...”

“But nothing,” Aloha said. “I understand how you feel, Emily. But tell me. How far is this going to go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to hold their hands when they walk to class?” Aloha asked. “Are you going to measure alchemical ingredients for them, then whisper answers as they try to work their way through a research paper? Are you going to wrap them up in so many protective spells they can barely move? Are you going to undress them at night like dolls?”

“Don’t be silly,” Emily snapped.

“It’s a serious point,” Aloha said. She didn’t seem offended by Emily’s tone. “Are you going to dress them up nicely, like those silly useless girls who came to the wedding and fainted when all the excitement began?
Are you going to hamper their development because you can’t bear to see them upset
?”

“It’s not like that,” Emily protested.

“Yes, it is,” Aloha said. “You feel responsible for them. You want to protect them. But tell me. What’s going to happen after you’re gone?”

She rose and headed for the door, then stopped and turned back to Emily. “I’m not going to report your use of a truth spell,” she added. “But I strongly
suggest
you don’t do it again.”

Emily rose as Aloha left the room, thinking hard. It was a meaningless statement. Aloha might have checked with the wards, just to see what had happened in the interview room, but she wasn’t the only one with access. Gordian might not be able to use it to expel her, given the context, yet it could certainly be held against her. She shook her head, then left the room and headed for the Fifth Year dorms. If she was lucky, she’d have time to change into something more comfortable before heading down to meet Caleb for dinner.

And then we can go for a walk
, she thought, hopefully.
I...

“Emily,” a voice called. She turned to see Frieda running up behind her. “I haven’t seen you for
years
.”

“Days,” Emily corrected. She assumed Frieda had gone down to Dragon’s Den on Saturday, but she had no idea what she might have been doing on Sunday. “How was your weekend?”

“I had my first Martial Magic class this afternoon,” Frieda said. “I’m just glad Jade told me to work so very hard when we were talking before Alassa’s wedding. How did you manage to keep up in your first year?”

“With difficulty,” Emily said. It had been far from easy. She’d been the youngest student in the class by over a year. “Work hard; do whatever the sergeants tell you to do.”

“I will,” Frieda said, cheerfully. She linked her arm through Emily’s as they walked down the corridor, evading a pair of younger students with the ease of long practice. “Did you really find a monster under the school?”

“No,” Emily said. She shook her head in amusement. Was that the latest rumor going around the student body? “Just... just a few hints of the past.”

“Better to look to the future,” Frieda said. She squeezed Emily’s arm. “The past cannot be changed, can it?”

Emily shrugged. If she’d had a time machine, she would have gone back and kicked her father in the nuts for leaving her. And then forced a sobering potion down her mother’s throat. But no manipulation of pocket dimensions could produce a route
backwards
in time, as far as she knew. It seemed impossible.

“I don’t think so,” she said, finally. She didn’t blame Frieda for not wanting to think about her past, not really. “But that doesn’t stop us from trying to learn from it.”

T
HE NEXT FEW WEEKS WOULD HAVE
been enjoyable, Emily conceded privately, if she hadn’t been worked almost to death. Classes had started in earnest, with tutors driving their charges forward savagely, leaving her with very little time for anything apart from coursework. And yet, she’d almost enjoyed exploring the tunnels under Whitehall. The map they’d started to compose of the underworld was growing larger, including the map room, the lower hall and several other oddities. She would have been happier, though, if they’d located the statue—or at least come up with a convincing explanation for its existence.

And Aloha had been wrong. The notes hadn’t stopped.

She’d done everything she could think of to identify the writer, but found nothing. The notes—twelve in all—had appeared in places ranging from Tiega’s desk in history class to her locker outside Care of Magical Creatures. Emily had no idea how
anyone
could hide so many notes without being seen, even if they
hadn’t
managed to sneak another note back into Tiega’s bedroom. And Tiega was taking it badly, very badly. She’d grown more and more depressed as the notes kept coming, lashing out at her roommates and the rest of the students in her year. Emily had even been warned, privately, that if Tiega’s behavior continued to worsen, she might well be expelled. It was just another thing to worry about, quite apart from her own grades and Caleb...

“You’re not focusing,” Mistress Danielle said. “Concentrate.”

She threw a nasty hex that slashed against Emily’s protections, forcing her to jump to the side as a second—and darker—hex threatened to burn through her weakened protections and strike her bare skin. Emily threw back a hex of her own, only to see Mistress Danielle dodge it with almost contemptuous ease. Her third and final hex picked Emily up and threw her against the spellchamber wall; she gasped in pain as she struck the stone and slid down to the floor. Moments later, Mistress Danielle marched over and placed a foot to Emily’s throat.

“I win,” she said, firmly. “You’re
still
not casting your spells fast enough.”

Emily scowled, inwardly, as she pulled herself to her feet. It said something about how hard she’d been working that going to Dragon’s Den was something of a break, but Mistress Danielle had no concept of mercy. Her lessons were practical and demanding. She showed no inclination to go easy on Emily, merely to keep pushing her to develop her skills—or break. She’d even admitted, outright, that it would be preferable if Emily broke now than when she was in a real fight. Emily couldn’t help wondering if Danielle was taking a subtle revenge for the death of her former master.

“I’m trying,” she said. “It just seems that I
can’t
cast them any faster.”

She groaned in pain. Every inch of her body
hurt
. Her head throbbed from the effort of casting so many spells in such a short time. She had the power, but not—yet—the skill to use it effectively. Her spells might be unstoppable, Mistress Danielle had said, if she had the time to cast them properly, yet any opponent worth his salt wouldn’t give her the chance to try.

“You really have an odd little disadvantage,” Mistress Danielle agreed. She gave Emily the superior smirk Emily was coming to detest. “You developed magic of great power before you were genuinely ready to handle it.”

Emily nodded in agreement, feeling sweat trickling down her back. Most students grew into their power, learning to cast spells before they reached their full potential. It was almost like learning to drive, starting with a basic car before moving on to the sports car. But her power had been boosted by the duel. It was easy to cast one or two spells; casting dozens in quick succession was a great deal harder. Some of her spells just came apart when she tried to cast them too quickly.

“Better work on that,” Mistress Danielle said. She didn’t look remotely winded. “I would hate to see you fall to a lesser opponent.”

She turned and strode off, practically daring Emily to throw a hex at her back. Emily resisted the temptation, too winded to ward off the retaliation that would surely follow. Mistress Danielle seemed to
want
Emily to dislike her, perhaps assuming it would make it easier for Emily to strike at her. And the hell of it, Emily conceded as she leaned against the wall, was that she might well have a point. Once she got used to striking with lethal intent, Mistress Danielle had said, she would find it easier in future.